Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson (best books to read for self development txt) 📕

into golden cloud, the maiden rose,

And left her maiden couch, and robed herself,

Helped by the mother’s careful hand and eye,

Without a mirror, in the gorgeous gown;

Who, after, turned her daughter round, and said,

She never yet had seen her half so fair;

And called her like that maiden in the tale,

Whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers

And sweeter than the bride of Cassivelaun,

Flur, for whose love the Roman Caesar first

Invaded Britain, ‘But we beat him back,

As this great Prince invaded us, and we,

Not beat him back, but welcomed him with joy

And I can scarcely ride with you to court,

For old am I, and rough the ways and wild;

But Yniol goes, and I full oft shall dream

I see my princess as I see her now,

Clothed with my gift, and gay among the gay.’

 

But while the women thus rejoiced, Geraint

Woke where he slept in the high hall, and called

For Enid, and when Yniol made report

Of that good mother making Enid gay

In such apparel as might well beseem

His princess, or indeed the stately Queen,

He answered: ‘Earl, entreat her by my love,

Albeit I give no reason but my wish,

That she ride with me in her faded silk.’

Yniol with that hard message went; it fell

Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn:

For Enid, all abashed she knew not why,

Dared not to glance at her good mother’s face,

But silently, in all obedience,

Her mother silent too, nor helping her,

Laid from her limbs the costly-broidered gift,

And robed them in her ancient suit again,

And so descended. Never man rejoiced

More than Geraint to greet her thus attired;

And glancing all at once as keenly at her

As careful robins eye the delver’s toil,

Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall,

But rested with her sweet face satisfied;

Then seeing cloud upon the mother’s brow,

Her by both hands she caught, and sweetly said,

 

‘O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved

At thy new son, for my petition to her.

When late I left Caerleon, our great Queen,

In words whose echo lasts, they were so sweet,

Made promise, that whatever bride I brought,

Herself would clothe her like the sun in Heaven.

Thereafter, when I reached this ruined hall,

Beholding one so bright in dark estate,

I vowed that could I gain her, our fair Queen,

No hand but hers, should make your Enid burst

Sunlike from cloud—and likewise thought perhaps,

That service done so graciously would bind

The two together; fain I would the two

Should love each other: how can Enid find

A nobler friend? Another thought was mine;

I came among you here so suddenly,

That though her gentle presence at the lists

Might well have served for proof that I was loved,

I doubted whether daughter’s tenderness,

Or easy nature, might not let itself

Be moulded by your wishes for her weal;

Or whether some false sense in her own self

Of my contrasting brightness, overbore

Her fancy dwelling in this dusky hall;

And such a sense might make her long for court

And all its perilous glories: and I thought,

That could I someway prove such force in her

Linked with such love for me, that at a word

(No reason given her) she could cast aside

A splendour dear to women, new to her,

And therefore dearer; or if not so new,

Yet therefore tenfold dearer by the power

Of intermitted usage; then I felt

That I could rest, a rock in ebbs and flows,

Fixt on her faith. Now, therefore, I do rest,

A prophet certain of my prophecy,

That never shadow of mistrust can cross

Between us. Grant me pardon for my thoughts:

And for my strange petition I will make

Amends hereafter by some gaudy-day,

When your fair child shall wear your costly gift

Beside your own warm hearth, with, on her knees,

Who knows? another gift of the high God,

Which, maybe, shall have learned to lisp you thanks.’

 

He spoke: the mother smiled, but half in tears,

Then brought a mantle down and wrapt her in it,

And claspt and kissed her, and they rode away.

 

Now thrice that morning Guinevere had climbed

The giant tower, from whose high crest, they say,

Men saw the goodly hills of Somerset,

And white sails flying on the yellow sea;

But not to goodly hill or yellow sea

Looked the fair Queen, but up the vale of Usk,

By the flat meadow, till she saw them come;

And then descending met them at the gates,

Embraced her with all welcome as a friend,

And did her honour as the Prince’s bride,

And clothed her for her bridals like the sun;

And all that week was old Caerleon gay,

For by the hands of Dubric, the high saint,

They twain were wedded with all ceremony.

 

And this was on the last year’s Whitsuntide.

But Enid ever kept the faded silk,

Remembering how first he came on her,

Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,

And all her foolish fears about the dress,

And all his journey toward her, as himself

Had told her, and their coming to the court.

 

And now this morning when he said to her,

‘Put on your worst and meanest dress,’ she found

And took it, and arrayed herself therein.

 

Geraint and Enid

 

O purblind race of miserable men,

How many among us at this very hour

Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves,

By taking true for false, or false for true;

Here, through the feeble twilight of this world

Groping, how many, until we pass and reach

That other, where we see as we are seen!

 

So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth

That morning, when they both had got to horse,

Perhaps because he loved her passionately,

And felt that tempest brooding round his heart,

Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce

Upon a head so dear in thunder, said:

‘Not at my side. I charge thee ride before,

Ever a good way on before; and this

I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife,

Whatever happens, not to speak to me,

No, not a word!’ and Enid was aghast;

And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on,

When crying out, ‘Effeminate as I am,

I will not fight my way with gilded arms,

All shall be iron;’ he loosed a mighty purse,

Hung at his belt, and hurled it toward the squire.

So the last sight that Enid had of home

Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown

With gold and scattered coinage, and the squire

Chafing his shoulder: then he cried again,

‘To the wilds!’ and Enid leading down the tracks

Through which he bad her lead him on, they past

The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds,

Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern,

And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode:

Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon:

A stranger meeting them had surely thought

They rode so slowly and they looked so pale,

That each had suffered some exceeding wrong.

For he was ever saying to himself,

‘O I that wasted time to tend upon her,

To compass her with sweet observances,

To dress her beautifully and keep her true’—

And there he broke the sentence in his heart

Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue

May break it, when his passion masters him.

And she was ever praying the sweet heavens

To save her dear lord whole from any wound.

And ever in her mind she cast about

For that unnoticed failing in herself,

Which made him look so cloudy and so cold;

Till the great plover’s human whistle amazed

Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared

In ever wavering brake an ambuscade.

Then thought again, ‘If there be such in me,

I might amend it by the grace of Heaven,

If he would only speak and tell me of it.’

 

But when the fourth part of the day was gone,

Then Enid was aware of three tall knights

On horseback, wholly armed, behind a rock

In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all;

And heard one crying to his fellow, ‘Look,

Here comes a laggard hanging down his head,

Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound;

Come, we will slay him and will have his horse

And armour, and his damsel shall be ours.’

 

Then Enid pondered in her heart, and said:

‘I will go back a little to my lord,

And I will tell him all their caitiff talk;

For, be he wroth even to slaying me,

Far liefer by his dear hand had I die,

Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.’

 

Then she went back some paces of return,

Met his full frown timidly firm, and said;

‘My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock

Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast

That they would slay you, and possess your horse

And armour, and your damsel should be theirs.’

 

He made a wrathful answer: ‘Did I wish

Your warning or your silence? one command

I laid upon you, not to speak to me,

And thus ye keep it! Well then, look—for now,

Whether ye wish me victory or defeat,

Long for my life, or hunger for my death,

Yourself shall see my vigour is not lost.’

 

Then Enid waited pale and sorrowful,

And down upon him bare the bandit three.

And at the midmost charging, Prince Geraint

Drave the long spear a cubit through his breast

And out beyond; and then against his brace

Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him

A lance that splintered like an icicle,

Swung from his brand a windy buffet out

Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunned the twain

Or slew them, and dismounting like a man

That skins the wild beast after slaying him,

Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born

The three gay suits of armour which they wore,

And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits

Of armour on their horses, each on each,

And tied the bridle-reins of all the three

Together, and said to her, ‘Drive them on

Before you;’ and she drove them through the waste.

 

He followed nearer; ruth began to work

Against his anger in him, while he watched

The being he loved best in all the world,

With difficulty in mild obedience

Driving them on: he fain had spoken to her,

And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath

And smouldered wrong that burnt him all within;

But evermore it seemed an easier thing

At once without remorse to strike her dead,

Than to cry ‘Halt,’ and to her own bright face

Accuse her of the least immodesty:

And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more

That she could speak whom his own ear had heard

Call herself false: and suffering thus he made

Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time

Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk,

Before he turn to fall seaward again,

Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold

In the first shallow shade of a deep wood,

Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks,

Three other horsemen waiting, wholly armed,

Whereof one seemed far larger than her lord,

And shook her pulses, crying, ‘Look, a prize!

Three horses and three goodly suits of arms,

And all in charge of whom? a girl: set on.’

‘Nay,’ said the second, ‘yonder comes a knight.’

The third, ‘A craven; how he hangs his head.’

The giant answered merrily, ‘Yea, but one?

Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him.’

 

And Enid pondered in her heart and said,

‘I will abide the coming of my lord,

And I will tell him all